BraX3 Telco Compatibility – Europe

BraX3
21

hi, the OS before was the stock OS that shipped - IODE 6.8 I believe. Signal was weaker in the house than alternative phones, but available. Since the end of November upgrade to IODE 6.9 the signal strength is completely gone - even outside it is weak but indoors it is non-existent.

5G is not supported in my area so I don’t know about that, and 3G masts have been switched off recently in the UK, so the signal piece relates only to 4G.

Cheers

22

@plamen - i have just updated to v7.0 of IODE OS and the same issue…no signal indoors for ID Mobile (‘3’) indoors and poor general signal quality outdoors compared to 2 other phones (Moto running Lineage 23 and Murena One running e/os 3.2) that are absolutely fine for signal when right next to the Brax3.

23

@plamen Received my new router but Wi-Fi calling issues still persists:

  1. regardless of mobile network, merely enabling Wi-Fi calling (even if not used) causes the signal to be lost and regained a lot more frequently than otherwise
  2. Wi-Fi calling either outright fails to initiate a call with “Server Unavailable” error message or randomly cuts out some point during the calls.

I have updated to Iode OS v7 and reset my mobile network settings. After chatting with Three UK today they insist it must be a wifi network issue but I’m not convinced.

Some side notes:

  • There appears to be some kind of list of supported devices maintained by Three UK that their support team have access to, and BraX3 is not on that list. Not sure of the implications of it but thought it was worth sharing.

  • It also feels like the Brax3 is more sensitive to less than ideal signal strength than previous phones I’ve owned.

  • Still seems Wi-Fi calling needs mobile network connectivity to work which sort of defeats the point of it. If you’re making Wi-Fi calls then there’s very good odds your mobile signal is terrible.

24

Could you check with your carrier what bands are supported in your area?
After a check, I can see that Band 20 and Band 32 are supported in the UK, but not available in the BraX3.
With 5G, n28 and n78 are supported on the BraX3. But the n258 isn’t.

25

Have you check if wifi calling is enabled? You can check the details of this issue raised before: Placing VoWiFi calls fails without cellular connectivity (#38) · Issues · ota / issue-tracker · GitLab

26

Bands 20, 3 and 1 are supported by my carrier although 1 is listed as 3G only (for my carrier - ID Mobile - at least). I suspect with the 3G switch-off at the end of November, perhaps Band 1 was the strongest where I live, the services have not been re-utilised to serve 4G and so the weaker signal strength is all that is available to the Brax3.

Originally using OS 6.8 and before the above date, signal was fine - and it seems more likely that the provider<>Brax3-supported-bands rather than the OS at fault. I have another IODE OS phone that gets signal using the same sim card/provider although occasionally it drops.

I cannot check 5G sadly.

My question is - are there plans to add support for other bands…is that a simple(ish) thing to do?

Thanks for the help to date.

27

@TC978 Based on plamen’s post (link below), sounds like the answer is “no”.

28

gotcha - thanks for that. I may have to shift providers in that case but good to know the limitations!

29

The B1 I mentioned is a 4G LTE band, not a 3G one. There are a bunch of 2G and 3G bands supported on the phone (check the specs), but those are not relevant for 4G and 5G.

30

Sorry for the late reply. Voice Over Wi-Fi shows as Available in the IMS Service Status when Wi-Fi calling is turned on at the sim level in Settings.